Using network drive with Time Machine

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Level 1

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Using network drive with Time Machine

Hi there.

Recently I bought an iomega home media network drive with 2tb of storage.
The first time I connected it, I was able to see the shared folders and so on. I was also able to backup using Time Machine.

Later on, I "ejected" the shared folders. And of course, I couldn't backup with time machine.

I contacted tech support, they said I should connect to the network drive using afp://ip address
however, I get a "connection failed" message. But I can access the drive using smb, but not afp, that is required for use with Time Machine.

Does any one have a solution? iomega tech support said I should try with another Mac and see what happens. But has anyone encountered a similar problem?

Thanks

iMac 27" i7 2.93Ghz quad-core, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Mar 21, 2011 12:00 PM

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Answer 1

Bob Lang1

Level 5

4,090 points

Mar 22, 2011 7:59 AM in response to Ali Tarakma

Hi

I also have an Iomega network drive. I was able to set it for Time Machine by following the instructions in this link:
http://safalra.com/other/time-machine-network-drive/

Warning: As far as I can tell, Time Machine is backing up all my files correctly, and I have from time to time been able to restore single files from the backup. I have never tried to restore a complete machine from the backup and I've no idea how easy or difficult it might be to use a network drive for a full machine restore. You should only set up Time Machine on a network drive if you accept you might might encounter problems doing a full machine restore, and you're prepared to take this risk.

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Answer 2

Mar 23, 2011 7:40 PM in response to Ali Tarakma

Hi Ali,

I'm also using the iomega home media network drive (hmnhd). Linking Time machine was easy. The following was what I did:
1 - In FINDER, under SHARED, make sure you see hmnd-xxxx-TimeMachine (something like this)
2 - Look for the Time Machine icon (either Dock or applications folder) and select Open Time Machine Preference
3 - Choose Select Disk and map to hmnd-xxxx-TimeMachine

That all I did.

Also, for what its worth, I had problems with the iomega storage manager application that came with the product and ended up uninstalling it. I kept having FINDER and iomega storage manager conflicts. So, I use FINDER to manage files and the device console accessed via safari. Seems to be working better this way

Good Luck!

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Answer 3

Ali Tarakma Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 26, 2011 9:44 AM in response to Ali Tarakma

Thanks for replying fellas.

I was on the phone with iomega tech support for over an hour, I finally did a factory reset "correctly" and everything started working again.

But thanks for the tips, I'll keep them in mind in case I run into more trouble in the future 😉

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Answer 4

Jul 31, 2011 8:49 AM in response to Ali Tarakma

Just got a 2011 Mac Mini, the cheap one, and downloaded the Server App.

My local tech support (my Nephew) was NOT happy about Lion Server.... wanted to UPGRADE to 10.6 To be honest, I can see why, it has so many bugs I was regretting the download of 10.7 server.

Being impatient and not wanting to go thru the hassle of changing OS's, I just started dinking around. Note, I'm just home user, I'm fairly tech saavy, fairly new to MAC, I know nothing about servers. We have to two MBPs and this new mini, that's it. I just wanted faster backups, fast storage for music and other stuff, and that's about it.

SOLUTION: From the Server App, I simply clicked Time Machine, turned it on, and told it what drive to use... BOOM, I'm done, that's it! All I had to do was point my MBP to that drive an starting the MBP TimeMachine. Its that easy. Wow, really!

OTHER THOUGHTS:

I have a 4TB WD RAID (2 TB RAID 1). Its Firewire 800, so reasonable fast, and literally 6X cheaper than the equivalent Thunderbolt Promise drive (take a hike). My only concern is the Server puts all the client Time Machines in one partition... Now I have to figure out how to resize it. It blows me away a "server" doesn't have tools to resize a partition. Guess I'll have to load iPartition.

I was using a the same drive on the USB port of the Airport extreme. It was DOG slow! But it worked and is probably the cheapest network time machine setup you can have. Now, for 650 more, I have 100Mb backups and a cool new toy to play with. I'm probably going to upgrade my switch to gigabit. Then I'll have braggin rights over any other house on the block.

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